This applies to not choosing to believe as well. There’s a reason the Founding Fathers were inspired to place a separation of church and state in the First Amendment, it was to prevent religious beliefs, or teachings, from being forced on the general public in the form of laws. Thus, if limiting same sex marriage is based on religious beliefs, it’s not Constitutional.

Sometimes the hard part about living in a country with a Constitution like ours is being willing to protect and defend the rights of others to have the inalienable, God given right to choose how they will live their lives. In short, if you don’t mind religions telling other citizens – through the civil government – how to live their lives, I’m sure you won’t mind when other citizens – through that same civil government – start telling you how to worship.

The United States Supreme Court decided to side with “We the People”, refusing to block early voting in the battleground state of Ohio, a ploy developed by the Republican Tea Party (GOTP) there in an effort to restrict voting.

The court refused the GOTP request to become involved in the dispute over early voting in the state on the three days before Election Day, something that’s always been allowed in the past, but which the GOTP decided needed to curtailed during this presidential election year.

President Obama’s campaign along with Ohio Democrats sued the state over changes in Ohio law designed to take away the three days of voting for most people saying nearly 100,000 people voted in the three days before the election in 2008. But hey, what’s a mere 100,000 votes amongst friends? Well, in a state where only 262,000 votes separated the President from John McCain in 2008 that’s a sizeable chunk of votes being potentially disenfranchised.

In a time when the Supreme Court has given disastrous rulings regarding election spending – aka Citizen’s United – this is a fresh breeze of liberty blowing into the current election cycle.

While some in the Supreme Court may enjoy treating corporations like people who can spend whatever they want on elections, the American people don’t have to accept it, said Democratic senators who proposed a constitutional amendment this week to retake control of campaign spending.

The Huffington Post is reporting the amendment, introduced by Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), while not directly addressing the justices’ legal finding that corporations have a right to free speech that was previously curtailed by election law, it would add to the Constitution language saying Congress and the states can regulate campaign contributions and expenditures.

The amendment would effectively reverse two landmark Supreme Court decisions — the 1976 ruling in Buckley v. Valeo, which said spending money in elections is a form of speech, and the 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which ruled it unconstitutional to regulate the money spent to influence elections by corporations and unions.

The latter ruling has unleashed a flood of cash from corporations and super PACs into campaigns spending as much as they want without having to disclose where the money is coming from; theoretically opening up American elections to undo influence from a very limited group of citizens or perhaps even to wealthy foreign interests.

“Letting this go unchecked is a threat to our democracy. Campaigns should be about the best ideas, not the biggest checkbooks,” Udall said at the press conference.

Reportedly, the amendment has three main focuses: to authorize Congress to regulate the raising and spending of money for federal political campaign contributions and expenditures (including independent expenditures), to allow states to regulate that raising and spending at their level, and to permit Congress to pass campaign finance reform legislation that could withstand constitutional challenges. It does not specify what the reforms should be.

Also at the press conference, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a co-sponsor of the proposed amendment, called the Buckley case “one of the worst decisions that the Supreme Court has rendered in the last hundred years” and described the Citizens United ruling as “Buckley on steroids.”

A constitutional amendment could be a welcome proposal for the thousands of demonstrators involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement, which holds a reversal of the Citizens United ruling as one of its oft-repeated demands.

“The extent to which money and corporations have taken over the [campaign] process is reflected across our cities in the Occupy movement,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), another co-sponsor. “It is something we have to do something about if we are going to reclaim American democracy as the shining light to other countries that it has always been.”

The amendment faces a long, unlikely path even to win initial congressional approval. Senate Republicans last year opposed a Schumer measure, the Disclose Act, which simply required additional disclosure about campaign spenders. Big surprise the Republican Tea Party (GOTP) interests in the Senate opposed it; unfortunately we have effectively discovered that conservatives today – almost to the man and woman – serving in the Congress are wholly owned by big corporate business and uber-wealthy interests. They care more for their pocket books than for individual liberties.

The United States Supreme Court has handed down its decision on “Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association”, and while the Court decided the California law in question was unconstitutional due to limiting free speech, something everyone on both sides of the political spectrum should be happy about – meaning the Court’s defending of the First Amendment – some on the court, namely Justice Clarence Thomas, believe that children have no guaranteed First Amendment rights.

Thomas once again demonstrated his own inability to sit on the nation’s highest court, declaring that the majority’s opinion in the case “does not comport with the original public understanding of the First Amendment…The practices and beliefs of the founding generation establish that ‘the freedom of speech,’ as originally understood, does not include a right to speak to minors (or a right of minors to access speech) without going through the minors’ parents or guardians.”

So, if we were to follow Justice Thomas’s logic on what the founding generation’s view on any number of subjects was, then we would have to effectively turn 200 + years of judicial review on its head. Thomas’s very rigid interpretation of all things constitutional is one of the biggest flaws in “originalists’” theology.

Opening up this Pandora’s Box, and following Thomas’s view of the founding generation’s view of things, what laws or rights would need to be overturned?

First, Justice Thomas would need to resign from the bench, because it should be quite clear to any number of originalists what the founding generation’s view of 3/5 of a person occupying a seat on the Supreme Court would be. So, step down Mr. Justice, step down, or be a hypocrite; but you can’t dare to speak for the founding generation and then not uphold all that generation would have upheld.

Women would no longer have the right to vote, and would belong to their husbands – as property.

African-Americans could still be owned as slaves.

African-Americans would no longer have the right to vote.

African-American children would still be attending school in “separate but equal” facilities, while children with special needs would be placed in state run institutions.

African-Americans would have to sit in the back of the bus, and ride in separate cars from whites on any trains, as well as sit in separate areas of theaters and sporting events, and use separate toilet facilities and drink from separate water fountains.

African-Americans would not be serving in the armed services.

If children are not guaranteed the rights of the Constitution, according to the founding generation, then does that theology extend to the unborn as well?

Interestingly enough, following Thomas’s logic, the infamously recent decision of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission would need to be overturned because there is no conceivable way any originalists could claim the founding generation would ever have subscribed to the idea of a business corporation being endowed with inalienable rights by the creator.

Mr. Associate Justice, step down before you humiliate yourself any further. You are clearly unqualified as your recent stands on any number of cases prove. You have been shown to be unethical by refusing to recluse yourself from cases where there is clear conflict of interest. You sir, are an embarrassment.

Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has earned over $680,000 working for the uber right wing Heritage Fundation; but her hubby hasn’t included it on financial disclosure forms. Ooops?

Justice Thomas failed to report his wife’s income for at least five years, the watchdog group Common Cause has claimed. For the years 2003 to 2007, Virginia Thomas, earned $686,589 from the Heritage Fundation, according to the group’s review of the foundation’s IRS records; and the Justice failed to note the income in his Supreme Court financial disclosure forms for those years, instead checking a box labeled “none” where “spousal noninvestment income” would be disclosed. Is this an honest oversight? Is this some kind of clerical error? Or has Justice Clarence Thomas committed an illegal act worthy of impeachment, and removal from the highest court in the land?

Not only is Virginia Thomas a hired gun for the Heritage Foundation, she’s also the lead hack of a group called Liberty Central, an organization she founded to supposedly “restore” the “founding principles” of limited government and individual liberty. You know, those good old fashioned American values, like committing tax fraud. Interestingly, on his 2009 disclosure form, Justice Thomas also checked his spousal income as “none.” Common Cause claims Liberty Central paid Virginia Thomas an unknown salary that year.

The sticky wicket for Thomas is federal judges are required by law to disclose the source of spousal income. It’s required Mr. Justice! You’re duly bound to uphold the law, which means you, and your wife, have to follow the rules like everyone else, not pick and choose what works for you and what doesn’t.

“Without disclosure, the public and litigants appearing before the court do not have adequate information to assess potential conflicts of interest, and disclosure is needed to promote the public’s interest in open, honest and accountable government,” Common Cause President Bob Edgar wrote in a letter to the Judicial Conference of the United States.

Common Cause has filed a letter requesting the United States Justice Department investigate whether Justices Thomas and Antonin Scalia should have disqualified themselves from hearing a campaign finance case after they reportedly attended a private meeting sponsored by Charles and David Koch, billionaire philanthropists who fund conservative causes. And what was this case, the one the two “Justices” should have removed themselves from? It wasn’t a big one, hardly a mere trifle of a case, Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission.

Yeah, that’s right, one the largest land mark cases to come before the Supreme Court probably since its inception; a case wherein the court ruled corporate and union funds could be spent directly on election advertising, without any disclosure, and that corporations are in effect equal to people, equal to citizens, and guaranteed free speech under the Constitution.

And guess who’s been the one guy on the court arguing that laws requiring public disclosure of large contributions are unconstitutional?

Well, guess what Justice Thomas? You’re a fraud. You’ve always been a fraud, and this goes to prove that you really are as dishonest as the day is long. It also casts serious doubt on the validity of your testimony during your confirmation hearings, and your ability to serve impartially as a member of the United States Supreme Court. You’re an embarrassment Sir and deserve to be impeached, but with your cronies controlling the House that’s not likely to happen. So, please, for once in your life, do the honorable thing and resign. Oh, wait, who am I talking to?